Nearly 10,000 Canadians have asked grocer Loblaws to keep a promise to stop selling eggs from hens confined in tiny cages. In 2016, Loblaw announced it would stop selling eggs from hens confined in cages in all their stores, including Loblaws grocers, by 2025. The transition was supposed to be completed by 2025. But today, seven long years after the promise was made, the company says it won’t meet this deadline, and refuses to share a new timeline for stamping caged cruelty out of its supply chain.
Animal Justice and our Toronto supporters took this message directly to shareholders this week, demonstrating outside the annual shareholders’ meeting of George Weston Limited, Loblaws’ parent company.
Several shareholders stopped to discuss the company’s promise on their way into the meeting, and to let us know that they agree with our campaign and support cage-free eggs.
Recently, Loblaw released a new ESG Report which states the company is still committed to going cage-free. But the report doesn’t share a new timeline or any other plans to reach that goal. The company refuses to provide transparency for shareholders, consumers, and compassionate members of the public.
The only progress Loblaws has shared publicly over the past seven years is that their President’s Choice egg brand is cage-free. But even then, Loblaws won’t share how much that represents out of the total amount of eggs sold in their stores.
Photo: PETA
Caged Cruelty Has Got to Go
Caging hens is considered one of the cruelest practices in the animal agriculture industry. Sensitive hens are kept in small wire cages without space to walk around, scratch in the dirt, or even spread their wings. Hens suffer immensely in these tiny cages for their entire lives. It’s unacceptable that Loblaws continues to fail hens by profiting from this abuse.
As Loblaw boasts in their ESG report, they are one of Canada’s largest buyers and sellers of meat, chicken, eggs, and dairy products. Loblaws can influence the entire farming industry to get rid of some of the worst practices, including banning cages for hens. But Loblaws is instead choosing to break its promise to consumers, and continue to allow hens to suffer in cages. Join us by sending a message to Loblaws today, asking them to go cage-free!
